65

Great credit is given by writers to this period for scientific achievement. "There is no period in the history of mankind so distinguished by great and important discoveries or so remarkable for the development of the human intellect as the seventeenth century" "The age was emphatically an age of Discovery and Invention".66 "The human intellect had reached the bounds of the 'Wonderland' of Modern Science".67 It is now our task to refute or justify these assertions. As stated above, there was no definite specialization at this time. The various fields of science were being surveyed and the boundaries were being defined. It is difficult, therefore, to classify the achievements. For the sake of convenience the following headings have been made: 1. Antiquarianism. 2. Astronomy. 3. Botany. 4. Geography. 6. Mathematics. 7. Physics. 8. Mechanical Inventions. The progress made during the period will be traced as briefly as possible.

Chemistry. 5. Physiology. 9.

Interest in Antiquarianism was not a new thing in 1660. As early as 1572 there was a Society of Antiquarians in London.68 A "collector of rarities" was the hero of a comedy for the English stage in 1641.69 The first great collection of note was begun by John Tradescant, a traveller, who arrived in England about 1600. Under Charles I he was Keeper of the King's Garden. In 1650 he died and left to his son the great collection he had made. The son continued the work of the father and at his death gave the collection to Elias Ashmole, himself an antiquarian and an eminent virtuoso. He in turn gave it to Oxford at his death in 1682, "twelve waggon loads".70

The Royal Society also found an interest in collecting rarities. It was voted to pay "fifty pounds to buy a collection of rarities by Mr. Hubbard'." Then, in the last years of the seventeenth century and the early years of the eighteenth, there was aroused a keen interest in the ancient Roman remains in certain parts of Ency. Brit., Astronomy, vol. 21, p. 220. 15th Edition.

68 Owen, J., Glanvil's Scepsis Scientifica, Introd. p. XXXIX.

67 Ibid. p. XL.

68 Ency. Brit., Zoology, vol. XXIV, p. 800. 15th Ed. Cf. Leland's New Year's Gift and Bale's Index, and cf. Camden, Selden and others.

Shackerly, Marmion, The Antiquary, 1641.

70 Weld, C. R., History of the Royal Society, pp. 187-8, 64.

71 Birch, Thomas, History of the Royal Society, vol. II, p. 64.

England. The first report of these investigations was received by the Royal Society in March, 1683, 72 in a letter read by Martin Lister; who was at the time one of the Secretaries. From this time on the reports are frequent. Many of the gentlemen of leisure found entertainment in this search. From time to time the Royal Society received a number of rarities, and kept them in a room at Gresham College, which Dr. Seth Ward called the "Monster and maggot room". By 1665 the Coffee Houses had began to advertise collections. This was the period also, it must be remembered, of an awakened interest in and an eager search for old and rare manuscripts. Junius published his Anglo-Saxon texts in 1655; Thwaites edited the Heptateuchus in 1698; Hickes's Thesaurus appeared in 1705; Oldys, after years of Antiquarian research, began his edition of the Harleian Miscellany, 1744. These are only indications of a strong undercurrent of scholastic antiquarian interest. There is an interesting account of "the hunt for old books" in the Life of Lady Winchelsea.73 Later, Gray and Wharton undertook a history of early English Literature. This spirit of renaissance scholarship united with the new philosophy and developed an interest, largely to be sure for diversion and relaxation, wholly apart from "the bitterness of party" and the disputes of theology.

The impulse toward antiquarian research was due to curiosity. The work was not thorough, nor was it really scientific. "They do indeed neglect no opportunity to bring all rare things of remote countries within the compass of their knowledge and practice. But they still acknowledge their most useful informations to arise from common things, and from diversifying their most ordinary operations upon them"." Careful classifications were made by some of the curators, but except in the case of such men as Ralph Thoresby, Llwyd, and his associate, Dr. Plot, antiquarianism was little more than dilettanteism. The sum total of the work done during this period was to discover some remains of Roman towns and camps, to gather together curious odds and ends from many parts of the world-Jamaica, America, India, etc. The Royal Society received an elephant's tooth, a rattle-snake's skin, a piece

Phil. Trans. Feb. 21, 1666.

18 Reynolds, Myra, Wks. of Lady Winchelsea, Introd., pp. XIV, XVII. Cf. Hallam, Introd. to the Lit. of Eur., vol. IV, pt. IV. Chap. I, sec. 2.

74 Hooke, Robert, Micrographia, p. 24.

of petrified wood, the horns of a moose,75 etc. The prime incentive here, it is to be noted, is not usefulness.

The best scientific work of the period was done in Astronomy.76✓ This is directly due to the invention of the telescope and apparatus for grinding lenses. From the earliest records of the work of the Royal Society, papers were read on astronomical observations." Comets were reported; new stars were discovered; the milky way was seen to be a multitude of distant stars; eclipses were accurately predicted. All scientific men were interested in this work, so that it became fashionable to look at the heavens. Sorbiere found a public telescope when he was in London. "Dans le parc le Roy a fait dresser un grand mast pour des Telescopes, avec lesquels Monsieur de Chevalier Robbert Moray me fit voir Saturne, et les Satellites du Jupiter"."

79

It was during this period that the struggle between the old Ptolemaic theory of the cosmogony and the comparatively new Copernican theory came to a final issue. The earth ceased to be the center of the universe, and, like other visible planets, began to move around the sun. What caused them to move? What was the course of their movement? men began to ask. The questions were fully answered and the answer was mathematically demonstrated by the greatest scientist of the period,-Sir Isaac Newton. In him were combined all the elements of the new science. He used the latest and the most improved mechanical apparatus; he tested his own theories by numerous experiments, and urged others to do the same; he demonstrated his conclusions by mathematics. The nobility of his character and the candor of his mind did much to dignify scientific research, and to impress his revolutionary astronomical ideas upon the minds of men.

The leading astronomers of this period were:-Huygens, noted

75 Phil. Trans. July 10, 1683, Nov. 20, 1683; Jan. 20, 1684; April 20, 1684; Dec. 20, 1684; May 20, 1685; Nov., 1685; Nov.-Dec., 1686; Sept.-Oct., 1687; June, 1693; May, 1694; Nov., 1697; May, 1698; Sept., 1698; April, 1700; Sept.-Oct., 1700; Feb., 1701; Jan.-Feb., 1702; Nov.-Dec., 1702; Feb., 1705; Jan.-Mar., 1706; Apr.-June, 1711; July-Sept., 1712; Jan.-Mar., 1717.

76 Lodge, Oliver J., Pioneers of Science, p. 136.

Phil. Trans. Mar., 1665.

78 Ibid., Apr. 3, 1665; May 8, 1665; Mar. 12, 1666; July 2, 1666; Aug. 14, 1671; Feb. 21, 1675; Sept., 1699; Sept.-Oct., 1732; Apr., 1783; Oct., 1742.

79 Sorbiere, Relation D'Un Voyage En Angleterre, 1669, p. 32.

for his discovery of the explanation of the rings about Saturn, his pendulum clock, and his micrometer; Robert Hooke, a mechanical genius, who constructed a spring watch, an air-pump for Boyle, and who suggested the law of gravitation; Flamsteed, the Royal Astronomer, whose chief work consisted in the collection of data about the moon; Halley, who experimented with the magic needle, who brought to perfection the "lunar theory"; Descartes, with his new scheme of planetary motion, by means of "vortices"; Newton, with his law of gravitation demonstrated and sustained against all "adversaries"; Bradley, with his "aberration of the fixed stars", and his study of the earth's motion.

The scientific work of the astronomers was of a high character. The whole tendency was to destroy the superstitions of astrology, although there was even yet some extravagance in the claims of knowledge about the moon. "Astrology and Alchemy", wrote Macaulay, "had become jests''80 Although these pseudo-sciences continued to flourish,81 there is not a hint of the old astrological beliefs in the Philosophical Transactions; there is no investigation of the subject. Nor indeed could the new science be other than an enemy of astrology, with its purpose so definitely stated,-to seek "natural" causes as distinguished from supernatural. The contribution to astronomy of this period was solid and substantial, and, while the study may have "silenced the stars",82 it also expanded the horizon and stimulated the imagination.

"All that was known in the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century of the phenomena of life in plants was scarcely more than had been learned in the earliest times of human civilization from agriculture, gardening, and other practical dealing with plants. It was known, for instance, that the roots serve to fix plants in the soil and so supply them with food; that certain kinds of manure, such as ashes and, under certain conditions, salt, strengthen vegetation; that buds develop into shoots; and that the blossom precedes the production of seeds and fruit'.83 But "sys

80 Macaulay, T. B., History of England, vol. I, p. 378.

81 The famous astrologers were,-William Lilly, Evans, Hart, Captain Bubb, Jeffrey Neve, Dr. Ardee,-Besant, Walter, London in the Time of the Stuarts, p. 162. Cf. also Ashmole's Theatrum Chymicum.

82 Elton, Oliver, The Augustan Age, p. 270. Sachs, Julius von, History of Botany, p. 359.

!

84

tematic botany was begun in the last thirty years of the seventeenth century". The great names in the study of botany were:-Morison, Grew, Ray, Willughby, Leeuwenhoek, Tournefort, and Malpighi. Morison "helped in the discrimination of genera and got an idea of lineal descent"; Ray and Willughby developed the theory of sex among plants and called attention to striking analogies between plant life and human life, their chief work, however, being a descriptive classification of 18,600 plants (Historia plantarum Generalis); Grew and Malpighi used the compound microscope to study the cellular structure of plants; Tournefort, also a systematic botanist, was the author of Institutiones Rei Herbarias, "without a doubt the best book to appear before the time of Linnaeus";85 a long series of his papers are given in the Philosophical Transactions.86

With the passing of these men botanical science must await Linnaeus in the second half of the eighteenth century. But the accomplishment during this period was noteworthy. The microscope had been of great aid in discovering the cellular structure of plants, in tracing the flow of sap, and in classifying the species. From 1725 to 1740 the Royal Society received yearly for its repository fifty plants from the Chelsea Gardens.87

"The true use of Chemistry", Paracelsus (1493-1541) had said, "is not to make gold, but to prepare medicine". This was still largely the belief, the popular conception of a chemist being either the "sooty Chymist", vainly seeking to transmute the baser metals into gold, or the apothecary. There was, however, a new element contributed by Sir Robert Boyle, i. e., that all chemical changes were due to fire. Add to this the Stahl Phlogiston theory (during combustion phlogiston, the inflammable element, makes its escape, and is the cause of light and heat), and the great contributions to Chemistry in this period end. But there is a new attitude in chemical investigation, as elsewhere. The new science tended to destroy alchemys as the new astronomy tended to destroy astrology. Ben

84 Ibid. p. 66.

85 Thomson, T., History of the Royal Society, p. 33.

88 Phil. Trans. Aug.-Sept., 1674; Aug. Sept., 1675; June, 1683; Feb., 1685; JulyAug., 1693; Sept.-Oct., 1694, etc.

BT Cf. Phil. Trans. 1725-40.

88 Ency. Brit., Chemistry, 11th Ed. Cf. Ashmole's Theatrum Chymicum; Hathaway's The Alchemist, Introduction.